Playstation 2 (PS2)

GameCube, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Crushed Baseball 2004 [PS2/GC – Cancelled]

monokoma
13-03-2010
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Crushed Baseball 2004 is a cancelled Baseball game that was in development by Amaze Entertainment for the Playstation 2 and GameCube, that would have been published by Bam! Entertainment. It was meant to be an over-the-top arcade game (similar to Sega Soccer Slam), featuring crazy characters (you can see a human-shark in the screens below) with superhuman abilities. As we can read from a GameSpot preview:

Special powers, known as mojo abilities in the game, will include pitches that slice through the hitter’s bat like a buzz saw, batters hitting the ball so that it lodges itself in the ground and can’t be picked up, and fielders using suction gloves to ensure that they don’t miss a catch.

Many of the mojo abilities in the game will have to be earned during matches played in one of the game’s fully interactive ballparks. For example, at the Karate Dojo stadium, players who hit a gong with the ball will be rewarded with a new ability, as will players who manage to smash a stained-glass window in the centerfield wall of one of the other stadiums.

Originally announced in october 2002, Crushed Baseball was scheduled for release in March 2003, but it was later cancelled probably because of the publisher’s economic problems. In 2004 BAM! Entertainment was delisted from NASDAQ and continuing financial troubles made it impossible for them to publish any new games.

A GameBoy Advanced version of Crushed Baseball was developed by Griptonite Games and published in September 2004 by Summitsoft Entertainment.

Thanks to Les Betterley for his help in preserving some more screens from this lost game!

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GameCube, Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Rush Club [PS2/GC/XBOX – Cancelled]

monokoma
03-03-2010
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Rush Club is a cancelled racing game that was in development in 2001 by Wide Games (Kuju’s Brighton) for the Playstation 2, with planned ports for the GameCube and Xbox. The player would had to race in various cities (such as New York, Shanghai, London, and Tokyo) against rival street gangs, to reach the final goal before their competitors. Rush Club soon vanished from the PS2 release list and after Wide Games finished to work on Prisoner of War and Pilot Down: Behind Enemy Lines, in 2007 they changed their name to Zoë Mode.

The project was probably canned because they never found a publisher interested in it. The only screens and the video preserved from Rush Club look more like a tech demo than a real game.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Mercenaries [PS2 XBOX – Beta / Unused]

monokoma
02-03-2010
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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is an open world action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published in 2005 by LucasArts for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. DCodes7 was able to find 2 unused cut scenes, one placeholder intro and one unused trailer still hidden in the final game. Also, from looking at the data on the disk it’s possible to see some E3 files (maybe a beta level / demo?) and a debug menu (disabled).

In the gallery below you can see some beta screens with:

  • Beta Jacob
  • Removed Blood?
  • A carbine with a scope (the scope isn’t in the final)

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma
24-02-2010
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Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 is a third person shooter developed and published in 2000 by 3DO for the Playstation, Playstation 2 and Nintendo 64. In the gallery below you can see the first images that were released for the PS2 version: looking at the graphic in those screens, we can notice that it’s much more definited and detailed than the one seen in the final version. We can assume that these shots were just target renders, created with high-ends PCs or a PS2 development kit, to indicate how the game would have look when it was still too incomplete to show.

DCcodes7 noticed various differences:

Then there are the zombie enemies in the graveyard image, each zombie is different if you look at the image and compare each of the enemies closely. In that very same image the female character – which you get to play as in the game – her design is different in this image than it is in the final. One difference – from what I can tell – is her boots (shoes) are white in this image but are brown in the final game.

In another screen we have the helicopter – up right hand corner of the image – that’s shooting while flying straight at the main character: the way the helicopter fires and how it fly’s is different in the target renders than it is in the final.

In that same image we have a tank, again, not found in this level. There is also the “red target” around the tank, this of course means that auto aim is active and is targeting the tank. Of course the auto aim is still in the game, however the red auto aim target is different in the target renders than it is in the final.

The town seen in one of the images is on fire, which doesn’t happen in the game at all.

In another image we see a scoped version of the M16 weapon: of course the M16 is used but the scoped version of the very same weapon is not however.

Then we have the HUD: that’s seen in all of these target renders, the HUD is different in the final.

Thanks to DCcodes7 for the contribution!

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Final Fantasy 13 (XIII) [PS2 – Prototype]

yota
23-02-2010
5 Comments

Final Fantasy 13 was released in 2009 for Playstation 3, but the first prototypes for the game were created on Ps2 even before FFXII release. In this page we can see some pics from the old-gen version that were recently published in two official japanese artbooks / guides.

Unfortunately, it seems that Square did only some early testing of the battle system before switching the development to the Ps3. Even the characters (Yuna and Rikku from FFX) are placeholders, but, interestingly, in the last screenshots they appear to be cell-shaded.

Thanks to Proto1 for the contribution!

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